"Can were say, therefore, the all cheating is immoral?"
Cheating, in its lowest form, is a means of survival. Surviving a test, surviving the punishment one would have received from a parent due to a low grade. Surviving the shame.
Sure, cheating is very easily abused, and in most cases is unnecessary and immoral. But say for example, and this is very situational, that a travesty occurs. One so grand, yet resolved early enough, that a student cannot study for a test, but must go to school the next. Surely the student does not want to fail, or do poorly. And because they were unable to study, cheating is a must to getting a good grade. Is this immoral? To have the desire to succeed? To utilize others? Is it not sharing, or assisting?
Most cheating is immoral, I will agree on that. Cheating out of laziness, cheating on one's husband or wife, cheating in a game. That is all very immoral. However, circumstantially, cheating can prove to a moral decision and in turn, proves that all cheating is not immoral.
Posted by David Basile
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The idea of cheating as immoral is dependent upon the situation in which such an act would be considered right or wrong. Since life has no set universal definition or distinction between right and wrong, it falls on perspective to decide for an individual what is correct and what isn't.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Dave, that cheating is essentially survival, and in most cases, is immoral. Life is a competitive game, where survival of the fittest is simply a Darwinian concept burned into the minds of individuals at birth, encompassing reason.
Factually, cheating is immoral. Ethically, cheating is immoral. However, this is all still not enough to prove that cheating is immoral. The ulterior motive behind an action can often change how a situation is viewed. Life or death situations, for example, are an instance in which cheating is allowed.
Take the novel "Into the Wild", whose protagonist can be viewed as either an arrogant idiot or philosophical extremist. Had he not been so arrogant as to toss the map which could have helped his survival, he would have lived. Yet in his eyes, having a map was cheating, not living off the land as per the words of Thoreau. If it is going to cost a life, than cheating must be okay, yes?
Thus, circumstance changes situations, making not all immoral actions "immoral".
I appreciate that in class we have been vigorously disecting the meaning of true morality and seem to be moving in the direction of agreeing that there are few, if any, absolute moral truths that can be stated with certainty, but that there are instead only a collection of various ethical perspectives. Nonetheless, contrary to the previous two comments, I have to firmly assert that cheating, at its heart, if morally wrong.
ReplyDeleteIn particular, I want to respond to *~Iris's assertion that "Life is a competitive game..." To me, this suggests that cheating can be justified if it ensures an individual's success in life, if it pushes an individual "forward" in any way. In other words, because of the demands of life, it is perfectly acceptable to crack under the pressure and resort to the tempting, easier methods of cheating. After all, the "ends justify the means" - right?
Unfortunately, life cannot be interpreted so simply! It is not a "game" by any means! To me, life is a gradual process, an intimiate journey. In that sense, the significance or purpose of life is not so much the ending point as an absolute value, but rather the ending point in relationship to the starting point. I do not believe that anyone can truly contradict such an assertion, since it is clear that no two people end life in the exact same place; quite to the contrary, each individual experiences their own personal, unique growth and development. Thus, the idea of life being a matter of perspective for each individual constitutes an absolute moral principle in itself. What makes cheating morally wrong in all instances, then, is that it reduces the value of life. By finding a shortcut, individuals reduce the potential they have for growth, and their ending point is not so far away from their beginning point. This shows a gross lack of respect for life itself which, if anything, is the only certain moral principle upon which (I would wager) all people can agree. (After all, we all exist, do we not?)
Life is, to some degree, one enormous game board where the moves you make will greatly impact the rest of your life. Any wrong choice, especially a major one, will lead to disaster.
ReplyDeleteAs for cheating, it is morally wrong, as determined by the fact that is negatively impacts both the cheater and his or her peers. The cheater is not gaining any new knowledge by cheating; therefore, it negatively impacts him on the whole, because after that major test, the unit is over with and he will have no other opportunity to regain his lost knowledge.
But only if he's caught...
A sucessful cheater MAY feel the guilt of his actions, and may attempt to learn it in case of a future test. As David said earlier, it is a struggle for survival, and as Iris said, life is an enormous high-stakes poker game. Cheating truly is a matter of survival.
Think about it. If it wasn't, why would anyone bother to cheat in the first place.
Cheating is immoral at a certain extent. There are times when cheating can be totally unacceptable, and then there are times when cheating is just a way to get by. Cheating can determine whether a person gets a failing or passing grade.
ReplyDeleteSo when is cheating wrong? An example would be a kid who has to take a test and has weeks to prepare for it. The teacher announced the test 2 weeks prior to the test date so the child has this much time to study. But instead of studying the child wastes his time and decides that he can pass by cheating. In this case the child should be punished for cheating on the test. It is completely immoral in this situation
Then there are times when cheating can be moral. For an example, when a teacher announces a test 2 days before it is given out. A child might have other obligations which causes them to not be able to study. If the kid has a good record of no cheating a good grades before, the child has a good excuse to cheat. No child likes the idea of failing a test, especiialy if they have good grades so far.
Personally i am against cheating, but i don't think it is immoral. Before you can decide whether or not it is immoral, you first have to think if there are even such things as morals. Since morals have to be universal i think it is very hard to prove that they even exist. There is no way one can say that cheating is immoral because it is not universally agreed as to whether it is right or wrong.
ReplyDeleteCheating is definitely unethical, but that does not mean that it is immoral. Someone's morals may be to do anything necessary to help there family be happy. They may have to cheat in order to get there but at least there achieving their ultimate "moral." Although it is almost universally known that cheating on your boyfriend or girlfriend is wrong, there are still some exceptions who think it is ok and do it regularly.
I don't think you can say cheating is immoral because it can't be universally agreed upon, which allows you to argue that there aren't even such things as morals. Some people argue and say that there are certain topics that no one can ever disagree but they don't take into account the extreme outliers like Jffrey Dahmer for instance. He was a serial killer and even practiced cannibalism at times. Society would say that both of those actions are morally wrong, yet he didn't think so. Therefore it can not be a moral since not everyone agrees upon the subject. This is why i believe there are no such thing as morals and that there is only perspectives.
Cheating can be neccesary at times but the idea of it is immorol. If your using cheating as a way to "survive" it is your own fault that you didnt prepare yourself. If theres a test in school, the night before you should be preparing for the test by studying. You cant rely on cheating to succeed. Cheating is not always an effective method. The moral way to survive through life is to prepare yourself to get through whatever it may be on your own. Once something gets hard you need to beable to handle it and not crack under pressure. I agree with Daniel R that life is not a game and its a gradual process.
ReplyDeleteAlso, life really is not significant on the whole.
ReplyDeleteTo the individual, it might seem so, but in the universal matter of things, who cares about cheating?
Dan's main argument seems to be that cheating will not help a person in the long run. "What makes cheating morally wrong in all instances, then, is that it reduces the value of life. By finding a shortcut, individuals reduce the potential they have for growth, and their ending point is not so far away from their beginning point."
ReplyDeleteBut what about a con artist? Cheating is a complex art to them, and becoming a better con artist would certainly constitute growth.
-Chris Felton
Cheating can be immoral in every way. If you cheat on a test, that would be extremely immoral. This would affect you grade, but also affect how you would feel about the test. You would feel terrible and have guilt. You might feel bad for the person you cheated on and this would affect how you would feel about the person.
ReplyDeleteCheating can also be moral. If you cheated by using something to help someone, but not hurt someone, this would be moral. It would also be immoral, but in different ways. This would be good and help some people.
Survival is definitely a key to cheating. Cheating has a big spot in life. Survival is important. You don’t know what will happen and you don’t know what can happen. Survival is definitely a game that has its own ways of changing and affecting everyone. You don’t know if you need to cheat in order to survive. These things just happen.
Cheating is most definitely immoral in most ways. Either way, you will get in trouble, even if you are helping someone, you will get hurt in every way.